Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Hey there everyone! Are you ready for Thanksgiving? I’m excited to sleep in, stay in my pajama pants all day and eat with family. :) I hope yours is wonderful!

So remember last week when I showed you the massive clean out in the garage? I’m SO happy with it. There was one last project I wanted to complete in there and it was actually fairly quick and easy AND inexpensive. The trifecta!

This is the area I was planning on addressing:

I’ve had my saw on that storage cabinet for years now and it worked OK but not great. I wanted to have a lot more room to spread out. My dream has always been to have a work bench in the garage and that dream was much easier to realize than I thought. :)

I put a plan together (in my head) and gathered my supplies at True Value. Originally I thought it would be a lot more elaborate than it ended up being. I am quite sure you could do this, even if you’ve never built anything! And if you’ve never built anything I don’t know if you need a work bench, but whatever. Let’s pretend.

I got two 1 by 4’s and one 4 by 4 – all eight feet long. (I already had most of another 4 by 4 leftover from another project too.) I measured out how long I wanted the bench to be and it turned out to be right at eight feet, which was a bonus because I didn’t have to have to make nearly as many cuts.

The first step was to figure out how high I wanted the table to be – I knew I wanted it taller than the storage containers because I wanted to keep them underneath. Then I attached the board (making sure it was level) to the studs along the wall with three inch screws:

Next I held the 4 by 4 post up to that to see how tall I wanted them to be. I marked it at the top of the 1 by 4 on the wall, because I wanted it the same height, since my plywood would sit on both the board along the wall and the 4 by 4’s in front. Does that make sense? It will in a minute. ;)

I cut three posts down to use as supports along the front, then placed the plywood (I used a 4 by 8 piece cut right down the middle, so two feet wide) on them and started screwing them together:

I did make sure the posts were level before securing them to the top. I put four screws in through the top of the plywood into each of the posts. I used drywall screws for this part – I use those for a lot of woodworking projects since they are so easy to get into the wood.

I secured all three posts and then did the same at the back of the plywood, up against the wall:

You could easily do that part first and then the posts, it doesn't matter what order you do it in.

Here’s where I opened my mouth, stuck in my foot and said, “Wow, this is going so well!”

WHY? Do I EVER learn?

Cause then I messed up.

I used the second 1 by 4 as an “apron” across the front – I just thought it finished it off nicely and looked a little better. Then we (my sis actually) realized the storage containers wouldn’t fit underneath with it on there. So we took that off, put them under there, then started putting it back on, but realized the container doors to the right wouldn’t open with the wood along the front:

So instead I used a scrap 1 by 2 I had – losing those two inches made it so I could open everything just fine. (As you can see above.)

I secured that to the posts with drywall screws too:

You can see in that photo how simple this whole thing was – it’s just a brace along the back wall with plywood on top and 4 by 4’s as supports in the front.

Super simple design:

I didn’t secure the posts into the cement floor – there’s no need to. The weight of the wood keeps them where they are.

Since the table is so close to the door I knocked down the edges and corners just a bit for safety:

Can I just say how much I love this?? I LOVE IT!! Why did it take me so long to do this?

I finally have space to spread out – there’s plenty of room for me to work and in my old workshop area it was impossible:

Plenty of room for a table saw too. ;) I got one a few weeks ago but it was messed up so I took it back. I’m going to try again soon.

Even with our slight mess up this project was much easier and quicker than I thought it would be. And that NEVER happens. The total cost was less than $50 – the main expense was the piece of plywood that was $25. (The thickness is more than half an inch for extra strength.)

It’s silly but it makes me feel like a real DIYer:

And it looks so much cleaner and nice compared to how this spot used to look! Love.

The garage is like night and day from before – I can’t believe how much better it looks and functions now. It’s stayed clean for three weeks now – that’s how I know it finally works for us! Isn’t that a great feeling?

I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own I would have done this project anyway and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.

For more project ideas visit True Value here or their Facebook page here.